For those U.S. national team fans unable to make the trip to the Estadio Mateo Flores, Tuesday night’s World Cup qualifier in Guatemala will be available only on pay-per-view.

Broadcast rights are held by the host, and the Federación Nacional de Fútbol de Guatemala opted to cash in by selling them to Traffic Sports, a soccer marketing firm that’s making Tuesday’s match available for $29.95.

It’s aggravating, but not unprecedented. But what’s happening in El Salvador very well may be. According to The Associated Press, the Salvadoran federation is charging journalists up to $50 for a seat from which to cover Tuesday’s match-up with Mexico.

Visiting Mexican writers who feel unwelcome can commiserate with their U.S. counterparts who attended the 2009 qualifier between the rivals at the Estadio Azteca. Confined to cramped wooden bleachers in the upper reaches of the imposing edifice, the American contingent was denied access to the internet, then subjected to both verbal abuse and flying beverages, as Mexico lifted its home record vs. the U.S. to 23-0-1.

If qualifiers in Latin America are this hard on fans and the press, imagine what they must be like for the players.

“It’s chaos. There’s no doubt about it,” said Taylor Twellman, who made several trips to Central America with the U.S. squad before taking a job as a commentator with ESPN.

Tuesday night in Guatemala City, the U.S. will face its toughest test of this six-game semifinal round. Guatemala isn’t exactly a formidable opponent. Ranked 85th in the world and missing three key players who were suspended amid allegations of match-fixing, Los Chapines struggled during Friday’s qualifying opener at Jamaica and were fortunate to lose by just one goal. Only four members of the current team play in foreign leagues (including the Chicago Fire’s Marco Pappa).

“On paper, it looks so easy,” U.S. goalkeeper Tim Howard said.

But he knows that the passion on the pitch, in the stands and outside stadiums throughout Latin America tends to level the playing field. Soccer is religion in Mexico and Central America, and the stakes are high. When the U.S. is the opponent, the furor is ramped up even further.

“These teams make it hard for you, not just on the field, but off. It’s a hostile environment. All the tricks in the book are pulled out,” said U.S. forward Herculez Gomez, who has spent the past two-and-a-half years playing professionally in the Mexican Primera División.

The mind games begin well before kickoff. The U.S. Soccer Federation plans each trip meticulously, chartering transport and closely monitoring food and drink, and it does its best to put the team in high-end, security-conscious hotels. Nevertheless, the fans find a way.

Twellman referenced 4:00 a.m. wake-up calls, but that’s just the beginning. There may be musicians in the lobby. On a past trip to Guatemala, a radio station staged a late-night “promotion” outside the U.S. hotel, complete with loudspeakers. Several years ago, before a qualifier in Honduras, a local newspaper published a hotel floor plan in order to assist readers wishing to create a disturbance for the Americans.

Game day in many Latin American cities is a gauntlet, beginning with the logistical hassle of transporting the U.S. contingent to a stadium that’s probably been packed for several hours before the team arrives. Roads have to be closed. A significant police presence, augmented by a security detail provided by the U.S. Department of State, ushers the Americans to the match. If fans choose to throw rocks from a distance, there’s not much that can be done.

Once the game begins, the tests come from all sides. Motivated opponents will do whatever it takes to win, and the fans are all too happy to help.

“The mentality is very different. They try to get inside your head,” Gomez said. “Obviously there’s a lot of play-acting, a lot of anti-football. You can’t fall victim to that. You’ve got to stand above it.”

CONCACAF referees are notoriously inscrutable, and the U.S. has learned that it can’t always rely on the man in the middle to maintain order. Meanwhile, the crowd adds to the chaos. Twellman said that players have learned to block out the anti-American signs and songs. But batteries and bodily fluids are a different story.

“It’s a little different. Batteries being thrown and hard objects being thrown, bags of urine, whatever that is, that’s all part of our experience going to Central American countries,” Twellman said. “How the United States of America is viewed around the word, you don’t realize it until you go somewhere else and you’re wearing the USA colors and playing against that home country. They always view us differently. Then throw the ‘whipped cream’ on top of that, and you’re like ‘Whoa!’.”

At Azteca in 2009, witnesses reported that the ‘whipped cream’ was a cup of vomit hurled at Landon Donovan as he prepared to take a corner kick.

Twellman said that games in Latin America feature a “breaking point”, a moment of adversity—perhaps surreal, perhaps unjust—that would test the U.S. and define the match from there on out.

“How close you are, how connected the 11 guys on the field are, will determine if you get a result,” he said.

Howard, the Everton star who has started four qualifiers in Latin America, said, “You go down to some of these countries and play and think, ‘We should win this game,’ and all of a sudden, it’s like, backs against the wall. How the heck do we get out of here with a point?”

The U.S. has learned how to negotiate those hurdles over the past few years and has managed to escape with a point, or even three, on a relatively regular basis. The Americans were 2-2-1 in Latin America ahead of the 2010 World Cup and are 1-0-3 all-time in qualifiers played in Guatemala. Although a combined 0-30-3 on Mexican and Costa Rican soil, the U.S. has a winning record in both Honduras and Panama.

It’s an irony as the next World Cup cycle begins that the players have far more experience than their famous coach with handling the peculiarities of Latin American qualifiers. Jurgen Klinsmann won a World Cup and a European Championship with Germany, but he likely wasn’t dodging batteries or vomit en route.

“It’s not my first World Cup campaign,” Klinsmann said when asked about visiting Latin America “Obviously the opponents may be something new for me, but we’ll have excellent people giving us insight on all the teams in Central America that we’ll be facing.”

Following Friday’s 3-1 win over Antigua and Barbuda, which demonstrated just how tight qualifying can be, Klinsmann said he once played in Costa Rica. He also brought the U.S. to Panama for a friendly (a 1-0 win) in January.

“There are places around the world that are challenges. We’ll take it the way it comes. Things will happen there. We will adjust,” Klinsmann said. “You adjust and give everything you have.”

Howard said he has confidence in his coach, who “won more things in his career than I can ever imagine or hope to do,” but also in his teammates. They are the ones who will have to keep it together if, and when, something goes awry on Tuesday. There are several new faces on Klinsmann’s squad, but many more who have weathered the qualifying storm in Central America and survived.

“I don’t think we’re going to be surprised,” the goalkeeper said. “We’ve got a lot of big characters on this team who’ve been there, who will be willing to take the younger guys by the scruff of the neck and drag them through it.”